Toilet Paper 17

Toilet Paper is an artists’ magazine created and produced by Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari (Le Dictateur), born out of a passion or obsession they both cultivate: images. Following in the wake of Cattelan’s cult publication Permanent Food, the magazine contains no text; each picture springs from an idea, often simple, and through a complex orchestration of people it becomes the materialization of the artists’ mental outbursts. Since the first issue, in 2010, Toilet Paper has created a world that displays ambiguous narratives and a troubling imagination. It combines the vernacular of commercial photography with twisted narrative tableaux and surrealistic imagery. The result is a publication that is itself a work of art which, through its accessible form as a magazine, and through its wide distribution, challenges the limits of the contemporary art economy.